Fighting on 2 fronts: Deployed troops battle for lost custody of children

And like Eva Crouch, who spent two years and some $25,000
pushing her case through the Kentucky courts.

"I'd have spent a million," she says. "My child was my life … I
go serve my country, and I come back and have to go through hell
and high water."

In the midst of World War II, back in 1943, the U.S. Supreme
Court held that the soldiers' relief law should be "liberally
construed to protect those who have been obliged to drop their own
affairs to take up the burdens of the nation."

Shielding soldiers, after all, would allow them "to devote their
entire energy" to the nation's defense, as the law itself
states.

But in child custody cases, the opposite often happens.

"The minute these guys are getting deployed, the other parent is
going, `I can do whatever I want now,"' says Jean Ann Uvodich, an
attorney who represented Bradley. "If you have an ex who wants to
take advantage, they can and will. The obstacle is that the judge
needs to respect the law."

Bradley had already joined the Marines, and his young wife,
Amber, was a junior in high school when their son Tyler came along
in September 2003. With Bradley in training, Amber and the baby
lived with Bradley's mother, Starleen, in Ottawa, Kan.

When the marriage fell apart two years later, Bradley filed for
divorce and Amber signed a parenting plan granting him sole custody
of Tyler and agreeing that the boy would live with Starleen while
Bradley was on duty.

In August 2005, Bradley deployed to Iraq. A month later, Amber
sought to void the agreement and obtain residential custody of
Tyler. She didn't fully understand what she had signed, she said
later.

Bradley learned of the petition in Fallujah, after calling his
mom's house one night to say hello to his son. He was
infuriated.

He worked during the day as a mechanic with the 8th
Communications Battalion, then headed back to the barracks and,
because of the time difference, waited until midnight to call his
mother to hear the latest from court.

"My mind wasn't where it was supposed to be," he says. And the
distraction cost him. One day he rolled a Humvee he was
test-driving. Though he wasn't injured, Bradley was
reprimanded.

Uvodich sought a stay under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act,
which provides for a minimum 90-day delay in proceedings upon
application by an active duty service member. She argued that
Bradley had a right to be present to testify.

But the judge refused to postpone the case, saying he didn't
believe it was subject to the federal law because "this Court has a
continuing obligation to consider what's in the best interest of
the child," court records show.

After a November 2005 hearing, the judge awarded temporary
physical custody to Amber. Last summer, that order was made
permanent.

Bradley, now 22, is stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., awaiting
his second deployment to Iraq later this year. He gets to Kansas on
leave for about two weeks every six months, and sees Tyler for four
days at a time.